Currently in paging systems, the subscribers are generally charged (billed) at a fixed monthly rate by the service providers (carriers) for the cost of providing service. Included in this fixed monthly charge is the cost of generating the monthly invoices which artificially increases the cost of providing service. As will be illustrated below, the additional monthly charge for generating monthly invoices has foreclosed some users from continuing their subscriptions or from initiating subscription to current selective call receiver (paging) systems.
For example, selective call receiver systems in the United States are currently serving over twelve million subscribers. Of the twelve million subscribers, about three-percent are discontinuing their subscriptions on a monthly basis. Two-thirds of the three-percent subscribers who have discontinued their subscriptions have reconnected service with other carriers. However, the other one-third of the three-percent of subscribers have stated that they have discontinued their services because the monthly fixed charge is too high to justify the low usage of their selective call receivers (pagers).
Accordingly, there exists a need to reduce the cost of providing service such that the carriers can attract and maintain the occasional (low message volume) users of the system. Therefore, by eliminating the monthly administrative and invoicing costs, carriers may be able to provide service at a rate that is cost-effective for attracting the subscribers who are occasional users of the system.